North Korea May Still Hold P.O.W.'s, Inquiry Suggests

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A Defense Department report has concluded that as many as 15 American soldiers taken prisoner during the Korean War are still alive in North Korea and that several may want to return to the United States.

The internal report, dated March 26, contradicts the Pentagon's earlier statements that it was unlikely that many American soldiers might still be alive in North Korea. Instead, it describes a "recent flurry" of "very compelling reports" this year that American prisoners are still being held.

A Defense Department spokesman, Sam Grizzle, confirmed the authenticity of the document, which was made available to reporters by a member of Congress, but said it did not reflect the formal views of the Pentagon.

"We've never ruled out the possibility of P.O.W.'s, but we've never ruled it in," he said. "The memo is unsigned and as far as I'm concerned, this is a draft memo."

The Pentagon has said in the past that it had compelling evidence only that two American defectors -- not prisoners of war -- are still alive in North Korea.

The March report was marked "for official use only" and was prepared by a Defense Department investigator, Insung O. Lee; he did not return phone calls today to his office in Washington. Officials described Mr. Lee as a veteran investigator with the Office of Prisoner of War and Missing in Action Affairs, a Pentagon agency.

The two-page report bases its conclusions on sightings by North Korean defectors and visitors to the long-isolated nation.

"There are too many live-sighting reports, specifically observations of several Caucasians in a collective farm by Romanians and the North Korean defectors' eyewitness of Americans in D.P.R.K., to dismiss that there are no American P.O.W.'s in North Korea," it says, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The report says the evidence suggests that American prisoners are living in group compounds in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and its suburbs, and that their movements "are apparently controlled by the North Korea Government."

The document was made available by Representative Robert K. Dornan, a California Republican who has alleged that Pentagon investigators failed to follow up on evidence suggesting that Americans soldiers might still be held in North Korea, Vietnam and other former war zones.

A spokesman for Mr. Dornan, Al Santoli, said in an interview that the report had been turned over by Pentagon officials sympathetic to his efforts to pursue information about Americans missing in Korea.

The issue was stirred up several months ago by reports in the South Korean press that American war prisoners were alive in North Korea. The Pentagon described the reports at the time as either false or wildly exaggerated. "We have no knowledge of live prisoners of war being held back since the Korea War," a Defense Department official said in January.

Kenneth Steadman, director of national security and foreign affairs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the nation's largest veterans group, said today, "We've been watching this carefully for 40 years, and have not seen any evidence of any live Americans held as prisoners of war" in North Korea.

"I would hope that it's true," he said of the Pentagon report.

While Mr. Lee's report offers nothing like conclusive evidence that Americans are being held against their will in North Korea, it cites "a variety of additional sightings reports" in recent years suggesting that many Americans prisoners of war may still be alive.

"Several defector reports cite that there have been numerous Americans teaching English and American customs at the foreign-language department in Amnokgang College or a military reconnaissance school in Pyongyang," the report said. "These English language instructors are sometimes identified as U.S. defectors, but more frequently as 'American P.O.W.'s.' "

The report also cited the account of a Romanian-American, identified only as Mr. Oprica, who worked in a North Korean factory in the 1970's.

According to the report, Mr. Oprica told the Pentagon in 1988 that during a sightseeing trip around North Korea in 1979, "the bus driver appeared to be disoriented and drove the bus through a collective farm" where Mr. Oprica saw "7-10 Caucasians, including one individual with blue eyes, working in the fields."

"The workers appeared to be in their 50's," the report said. "Mr. Oprica was told by a female passenger that the Caucasian farmers were American prisoners of war." While the report said Mr. Oprica was not able to recall the woman's name, Pentagon investigators last year tracked down another Romanian passenger on the bus who "confirmed seeing Caucasians working on a farm."

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A version of this article appears in print on , Section 1, Page 2 of the National edition with the headline: North Korea May Still Hold P.O.W.'s, Inquiry Suggests. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe